Time to Rethink: How Organisations Can Act Better at Diversity and Inclusion

Organizational leaders play an important role in setting the tone for the shift towards increased diversity and inclusiveness in an organization. As awareness around diversity and inclusion grows, diversity and inclusion have become more important for talent acquisition and a company’s employment brand. Many companies operate in an environment of high transparency, which employees demand and organisation respects. For younger workers, inclusion is not just about assembling diverse teams but also about connecting team members so that everyone is heard and respected.

Achieving diversity in the workplace is all about ensuring people who work within and throughout your organisation act as representatives of wider society. Diversity is the mix of people who make your organisation unique. Although the goal is not to put people in boxes, the chances that you're bound to come up against a situation where you would like to know more about a specific characteristic. The Inclusive Employers team can provide tips and insights about the key diversity characteristics; whilst at the same time helping you treat your employees as always people - not categories.

As we all know, diversity and inclusion now impacts brand, corporate purpose, and performance.

Diversity is no longer just a compliance area and not just in a limited scope of HR – it’s now on the priority agenda for most of the companies along with succession planning and employee engagement which has already proven that socially diverse teams perform better and are more innovative than their homogeneous counterparts so why has the uptake been so slow?

“Diversity is more than any one gender, race, ethnicity, culture or language. It’s richly representative of all people, all backgrounds, and all perspectives. It is the entire human experience not just a resource activity”

 I do believe and follow one of my own principles –

“No matter wherever you are or whatever you do, it is good to follow your own beliefs and values and at the same time it is as important as to respect other cultures and traditions”

We live in a diverse and equal society, it’s time for businesses to catch up. A read on how HR can help run through management support to be more efficient in achieving the results.

Diversity starts with recruitment

Recruitment plays a vital role in diversity not only from the day of joining of new employees but from the search, selection and interview process. Sourcing and attracting diverse talent pools should be the first priority and so do the companies highlight in their portals about Diversity, Equality and Inclusion.

HR should make and is making conscious efforts to go beyond their network to source new talent and ensure that the organisation is established as a place that appreciates diversity in order to attract a wider and more diverse pool of talent but in reality is this really appreciated?

Research has also found that job descriptions and titles play a much more important role in attracting a diverse workforce than any of us may think. HR need to ensure that their job descriptions are not gender influenced in order to attract more diverse applicants. These days, HR technology can also help by automatically screening candidates based on their competencies, experience and qualifications only by removing all biased from the process. As the diversity of your candidate pool expands and you get further down the recruitment process, utilise technology to avoid making any unconsciously biased hiring decisions.

Creating an inclusive culture

 While hiring is a crucial element in driving diversity, it’s equally important to ensure the workplace is inclusive, fair and supportive for all employees.

“Everyone is committed in making inclusiveness as a cornerstone of company’s culture not just HR”

Diversity doesn’t just create a more innovative company culture; it also enables businesses to better understand their customer – allowing them to create products or services that suit a wide variety of people.

HR should encourage an open-minded environment where employees appreciate and respect other people’s opinions, cultures and backgrounds. Most organisations already have a diversity and inclusion policy which does not remain only as a policy or a statement in reality, it important that all employees are made aware of it during the onboarding process and know what is expected of them in the workplace.

Diversity is not about treating everyone in your organisation the same, it’s about treating everyone as individuals. An inclusive culture doesn’t mean everybody has to like each other, but it does mean that the everyone has to respect each other.

If employees isolate themselves from each another based on their differences or backgrounds then it is the time for HR to relook at their inclusion policy and how it has/is being communicated.

Technology is key

 According to Gartner, more than 75% of large enterprises will include diversity and inclusion enablement criteria in their selection process for HCM technology by 2020.

“A diverse mix of voices leads to better discussions, decisions, and outcomes for everyone.” - Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google

Few senior executives have realized the importance of a diverse workforce powered with voices of people from different backgrounds, personalities and thinking styles across the global workplace. It has become important to create environments where all people are encouraged to draw upon their unique experiences, perspectives and backgrounds to advance business goals. To achieve this in a global work setting, it’s crucial to employ effective global communication and training efforts.

Technology is key when removing unconscious bias, and not just in the recruitment process – it can also help when it comes to performance management where employees are scored based on their achievements and objectives meaning management can make key hiring decisions and promote based on performance only.

HR can also say goodbye to the old fashioned diversity survey, smart HR technology records this data right from the start so that HR can get real-time insights and report on how the organisation is performing. Gamification also makes collecting this data easy.

Leading organisations, especially in the technology sector, have made huge strides in diversifying their workforce. In particular, Google, who have published their diversity data along with a number of research projects they have undertaken in order to tackle the issue. HR can see how they measure up in comparison to some of the world’s leading businesses by using Open Diversity Data.

It’s not only global multinationals who need to be transparent about diversity but all the companies including traditional.

Scope for embracing D & I in the workplace

• Ensure that top leadership understands the importance of diversity: Share research on the value of inclusion to build consensus at the organization’s highest levels. Then hold top leaders accountable through metrics and transparent reports on diversity in promotion, hiring, and compensation. It’s clear that the shift in D&I still includes, but stretches beyond, race and gender. We are in need of a collective push toward recognizing the need for diverse thinkers coming from a variety of different backgrounds, but companies are only slowly moving in this direction.
• Use technology and data to identify problems and measure progress: Analytics can now help in identifying patterns of gender and racial bias, disparities in compensation and rewards, and bias in hiring and promotion. Tools to anonymize resumes and help training managers remove bias should become part of the diversity effort.
• Move beyond HR: Consider diversity and inclusion as part of the corporate infrastructure, just like compliance, IT, and security; it must be practiced by everyone and owned by all line leaders. Diversity and inclusion is a business responsibility, not an HR responsibility.
• Consider global differences: Geographic diversity is increasingly important as more organizations become global. The specific challenges for diversity and inclusion will likely vary widely from region to region, and employees’ interests and concerns in different regions will likely differ as well.

It is crucial to hire and maintain a diverse workforce, so gender and racial/ethnic initiatives will be launched and maintained into the foreseeable future. There is much to learn from leaders in diversity and inclusion, but it is important to remember that every company’s D&I initiatives will look different. You should tailor your initiatives to address your specific industry and your company’s areas of weakness. Furthermore, global strategies should be able to be adopted locally.

Is there a secret formula to learning how to manage workplace diversity, especially considering the breadth of differences between global companies? Here are few steps imperative to obtaining inclusive leadership.

1. Seek diversity

Companies must pull applicants from a diverse pool using the best techniques. Most global companies understand this fact, but it is not enough. Best practices include training hiring managers to ensure the hiring criteria and process is inclusive.

2. Create inclusion

It is not enough to only hire a diverse workforce. It is crucial to leverage diverse perspectives for the benefit of the business as a whole. It is important to bring awareness to unconscious bias and discuss it in terms of the organization. In doing so, multiple perspectives are shared and considered.

3. Drive accountability

Leaders in diversity and inclusion should make it clear that your global environment promotes free speaking. Encourage employees to speak out against biases. If necessary, launch a culture change in which every employee is involved.

4. Treat others how they want to be treated

This process can be slow and intimidating, but your efforts will pay off when employees feel empowered to take individual accountability and let you know when they notice a bias. Diversity and inclusion activities in the workplace are not always a simple process. In fact, sometimes they can be quite messy. But it is often in these situations — in which employees step outside of their comfort zones and are faced with new situations and ideas — that tremendous growth occurs.

Remember that the so-called Golden Rule to “treat others how you want to be treated” doesn’t always apply in a diverse professional environment. Instead, it is better to follow what has become known as the Platinum Rule: treat others how they want to be treated.

Always be considerate and sensitive to the boundaries and expectations of others. A request or activity you may be comfortable with could be in conflict with the values of someone else in your company. Even commonplace interactions could have subtle cultural nuances to take into account. For instance, understanding how different cultures perceive a handshake, maintaining eye contact, or the boundaries of personal space can help to avert misunderstandings.

5. Contribute to the cultural diversity of your own workplace

Remember, diversity can take many forms. Don’t underestimate the cultural value you can add to your workplace. Whatever your background, your unique perspective, culture, and experiences can enrich the professional experience of those around you.

Set an example for others to follow by positively contributing to your company culture. Something as small as sharing a traditional treat from home can be a wonderful way to spark a conversation and inspire others to share too.

The best way to promote diversity in your workplace is by embracing it and working to build an understanding. Getting to know your colleagues on a personal level, regardless of their culture and background, will help you to find common ground, deepen your appreciation of differences, and promote an inclusive and welcoming work environment.

Leaders have long recognized that a diverse workforce of women, people of color, and LGBT individuals confers a competitive edge in terms of selling products or services to diverse end users. Yet a stark gap persists between recognizing the leadership behaviors that unlock this capability and actually practicing them.

A global organization catching on to this need for inclusive leadership is Ford Motor Company, which recognizes the need for leveraging different skills and perspectives, and for “respecting each other, and, in doing so, achieving profitable growth for all.”

Diversity without inclusion is a story of missed opportunities, of employees so used to being overlooked that they no longer share ideas and insights. But diversity with inclusion provides a potent mix of talent retention and engagement.